FEATURED | Tackling the ISIS: Towards a Robust Indian Anti-Terrorism Policy

In
recent history, the rise of terrorism as a policy instrument for both state and
non-state actors has created an increasingly complex and nebulous national
security mooring. So far, any concerted effort towards combating terror hasn’t
resulted in an ultimate decimation of terror outfits or their respective
channels. Rather, as the current trend indicates, it has resulted in many small
offshoots, which have gained much visibility in the “global jihad” arena further amplifying the
global threat perceptions attached to such outfits. The emergence of new terror
blocs such as Boko Haram in Nigeria and ISIS in the middle east coupled with a
resurgent Al-Qaeda present a much bigger security challenge for the
international community than ever before. Clearly, in times like these, lack of
operational foresight and objectives will lead to catastrophic results. While,
United States’ decision to execute air strikes on key ISIS posts is being
executed with modest success, modern terrorism is in need of a more robust strategy,
where all of international community will have a more pronounced and active
role to play.

The International Centre for Study in Radicalization
and Political Violence (ICSR) reported in January that the total number of
foreign fighters in Syria/Iraq surpassed 20000 and managed to exceed the huge
influx of foreign fighters during the Afghanistan Conflict in 1980s. It must be
noted here that according to the figures from 50 nations, there are 130
fighters from USA, 600 from UK, 1200 from France who traveled to Middle East to
join ISIS; incidentally, all these 3 nations are partners of the current global
military coalition against ISIS under leadership of USA.

In the context of India, this number
has been fairly low owing to a host of factors. Last October, Ajit Doval
offered a rather simplistic explanation to the situation suggesting that ISIS
attempts to lure young Muslims from India has largely been unsuccessful because
of a system of strong family values prevalent in India, wherein parents have
consistently reigned in on youths who appear to be going wayward. Mr. Doval is
correct to an extent but in addition to strong family values, India has a very
strong cultural and national identity that cuts across religious beliefs.
Further, India has also experienced immense success in execution of
de-radicalization programs. It is essentially a combination of these factors
that has prevented a situation from spiraling out of control in India. Bharat Karnad observes that there might not
essentially be a direct threat from ISIS either in terms of conventional
military or a direct or a physical threat or an organized threat. To this
extent, he believes that on account of the current threat perception, the
situation appears to be containable.

Despite this, it needs to be noted that
a pertinent threat remains to the national security architecture because of the
presence of the strong Indian Diaspora in the Middle East. Moreover, a recent ISIS
internal recruitment document accessed by US Today also reveals ISIS plans of
attacking India in addition to their map, which shows India under the control
of the Caliphate by 2020. While the Indian diaspora in this region contributes substantially
to the Indian economy by way of foreign remittance, it has also been found on
several occasions that they have funded a several activities related to terror
financing. The high number of Muslim pilgrims from India who travel to Mecca for
‘Hajj’ has the potential of emerging as a nightmarish security threat. According
to Brigadier Rumel Dahiya (Retd), it has been reported that ISIS has opened a
Hajj cell, which aims to contact the pilgrims and identify the potential
recruits among them. Evidently, if ISIS succeeds in its mission to recruit such
pilgrims it can wreak havoc on the domestic security landscape. For example the
attacks that have taken place in France, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in
the last month point out the increasingly diffused nature of terrorism in the
global context which has seen manifestations in the form of regular lone wolf
attacks. The relevance of India in this realm of terrorism comes with the cases
of young and impressionable Muslims getting radicalized to join the ISIS and adopting
the macabre of violent Jihad as the ultimate destiny of their lives. While the
strategy of de-radicalization and parental supervision has worked as a counter
terrorism response, it has only been able to treat the symptoms and not the
disease itself. This begs the question as to what can be done by the government
to strengthen the current counter-terrorism response to the looming threat of
an ISIS incursion into Indian Territory?

Towards a Robust Counter-Terrorism Strategy

To build a comprehensive
counter-terrorism response, the first and the foremost priority should be to
distinguish ISIS from other groups like Al-Qaeda at the international level and
groups like SIMI and Indian Mujahedeen at the national level. While groups like
Al Qaeda have generally focused on pressurizing the government by sustained
long term combat operations in various tiers of national security like in the
case of recent conflict in Yemen, the Indian terror groups have sought to
convey strong political stance against the government by an act of terror in
the form of bombings in public places and destruction to life and property. Rasheed
argues that ISIS has shown the caliber to challenge the global Westphalian
state system by militarily gaining control of territories not limited to
national borders and by establishing strong ruling authorities in those
territories. Further using innovative methods the group has projected a
revolutionary anti-thesis to the international political and economic system
from an Islamist perspective, which has attracted disillusioned youths from
across the world.

In India, the average Indian Muslim
often lacks an in-depth understanding of Islamic history and nuances of Islamic
jurisprudence, making them fair game for the narrative of violence espoused by
ISIS. While the current government engagement with the Indian Muslim community
has projected a strong counter-narrative, there is a burgeoning need for the
government to have stronger surveillance and monitoring of online media content
on internet forums and blogs, which may require extensive data mining
exercises. As a sustained measure, the government also has to build better
expertise in decryption of information in middle-eastern languages,
particularly Arabic in order to develop stronger capabilities of signal
intelligence gathering. In the recent cases where Indian citizens have been
stopped from traveling to Middle East to join the ISIS, the suspects have been
found with a lot of online literature published by the ISIS. Therefore, the
government has to make a prudent choice by categorizing all such types of
websites and blocking any form of access to these websites from anywhere in
India for the common citizenry unless and until an individual is authorized by
our intelligence agencies to do so for journalistic, academic and research
purposes.

Questions may arise on the individual’s
civil liberty to freely access knowledge without supervision of intelligence agencies,
but in the interest of national security, it is imperative to curtail such
rights in a reasonable manner. The travel by any Indian citizen to Middle East,
including for religious pilgrimage by Muslim community must only be allowed
after a thorough and detailed background check. Since a large number of Muslims
from India travel for pilgrimage to Mecca, the state Hajj Committees in India
ought to be involved in the process of background check of the pilgrims in coordination
with Hajj cell at Ministry of External Affairs.

Further, the communication made by any
Indian, residing in the Middle East, with their relatives, friends and
professional contacts back in India should be monitored strongly and any incidence
of homecoming by such an expatriate must be subjected to compulsory checks by
local police authorities. Moreover, as an immediate measure the government
ought to designate certain conflict zones in the Middle East, such as Ar Raqqa
province in Syria as a “No-Go zone” for any Indian citizen similar to the
measures taken recently by the Australian Government. Any Indian citizen
traveling to those areas without prior official permission from Ministry of
Home affairs or an Indian diplomatic mission abroad should be made liable to prosecution.
Special consideration, in this case, should only be given to an Indian citizen
who would travel to these conflict zones for humanitarian purpose, such as
volunteer with the Red Cross.

A rather ambitious but possibly
executable approach should also look at combating the ISIS through covert
actions such as cultivation of sources within the organization, or conducting
covert operations with surgical precision to stop their expansion into Indian
Territory from contiguous areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which have been
noted for the presence of the ISIS or its affiliates in the light of recent security
incidents. According to Bharat Karnad, the country also has a huge
responsibility to initiate proactive and pre-emptive measure to tackle radicalization
of young Muslims by terror groups through policies aimed at inclusive
development and mainstream orientation as opposed to a one-dimensional approach
geared towards de-radicalization.

Boots on Ground?

Military intervention may not be a
realistic agenda for the Indian government and India mustn’t exercise ‘boots on
the ground’ as an option because it will have serious repercussions for India
in the domestic and international political sphere. Further, as argued by Brig.
Dahiya, there are doubts over India’s military capabilities in comparison to
the international actors, despite her capability of expeditionary force
projection. Hence, the real thrust of counter-terrorism response by India would
be on intelligence sharing, processing and analysis which would require proper
coordination between Union and State Governments apart from regular
coordination between the Union Government and the other international partners,
while pursuing soft strategies of community outreach and de-radicalization of
the detained suspects at the same time. ISIS must be treated as a quasi-state
organization and in any form of warfare with another state military force ought
to be the last resort. For now, India must act expeditiously in developing a
robust counter terrorism strategy premised on intelligence, inclusiveness,
collaboration and outreach in order to secure itself and effectively degrade
the capabilities of such terror outfits.

About The Author:

Rachit Ranjan: Rachit Ranjan is a lawyer by training and specializes in international trade and investment policy. He has previously worked at the WTO and the Ministry of Commerce, Government of India, in the area of international trade law and policy. He has also worked as a lecturer at Jindal Global Law School where he was attached with the Centre for Trade and Economic Laws. Rachit holds an LL.B. degree from National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata and an LL.M. from Berkeley Law, California. He has been published previously by The Economic Times, Business Standard, The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, Global Policy and TheBricsPost.

Munshi Zubaer Haque: Munshi Zubaer Haque is a Strategic Affairs Researcher at Oval Observer Foundation.He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from University of Calcutta and a Masters Degree in Public Administration from Jamia Millia Islamia,New Delhi.His research area primarily includes international security and his research interests include Terrorism,Insurgency and Politico-Military conflicts in Afghanistan and in the MENA region. In the past, he has worked as a researcher with SE Asia and Oceania Center at Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses(IDSA),New Delhi, where he primarily worked on monitoring political and security developments in SE Asia and Oceania with a focus on defence relations in SE Asia in multilateral frameworks such as ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting(ADMM),the response of ASEAN member states to IS(Islamic State) and other security related issues.